Local Foods, Local Places supports locally led, community-driven efforts to protect air and water quality, preserve open space and farmland, boost economic opportunities for local farmers and businesses, improve access to healthy local food, and promote childhood wellness.

Through Local Foods, Local Places, partner communities have worked on projects such as:

Planning cooperative grocery stores to help revitalize small-town main streets.

Creating centrally located community kitchens or food hubs to aggregate and market local foods.

Starting business incubators to help entrepreneurs launch food-related businesses on main streets.

Making it easier for people to walk or bicycle to farmers markets and local restaurants.

Helping schoolchildren to grow their own food, and making healthy local food accessible to families, including via SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) benefits.

Developing community gardens in walkable, transit-accessible places.

Local Foods, Local Places Featured at Food for Tomorrow 2016

Watch a presentationExit on Local Foods, Local Places by Stephanie Bertaina from EPA's Office of Sustainable Communities at the New York Times Food for Tomorrow 2016 conference.

In selecting Local Foods, Local Places partner communities, special consideration is given to communities in the early stages of developing local food enterprises and creating economically vibrant communities. Partner communities in Appalachia and the Delta region are eligible to receive financial assistance to help them implement their local food and community revitalization plans.

Local Foods, Local Places builds on the ARC-EPA-USDA Livable Communities in Appalachia partnership, which worked to promote economic development, preserve rural lands, and increase access to locally grown food in Appalachian towns and rural communities.

The 2017-2018 call for applications for planning assistance from Local Foods, Local Places closed on October 25, 2107. The application is available here for reference only.

Local Foods, Local Places Toolkit

Based on the best practices and lessons learned from Local Foods, Local Places workshops, EPA developed the Local Foods, Local Places Toolkit to help communities interested in using local foods to support downtown and neighborhood revitalization. The toolkit provides step-by-step instructions for planning and hosting a community workshop and includes case studies and templates communities can adapt to their needs.

Community Stories

Learn about some of the communities that have hosted Local Foods, Local Places workshops.

Story Map

See the Community Stories map (link will open in a new window or tab) to learn about how Williamson, West Virginia, used Local Foods, Local Places and other EPA assistance to develop strategies to drive downtown revitalization using local foods and health facilities.

Podcast

Harlan, Kentucky: Listen to this podcast to learn how Harlan's participation in Local Foods, Local Places is helping the town grow its local food economy and revitalize downtown.

Case Studies

Videos

Corbin, Kentucky: See how community members in Corbin used local foods to revitalize their downtown, helping to reduce the vacancy rate from 40 percent to 5 percent.

Rainelle, West Virginia: See how Rainelle is using Local Foods, Local Places assistance to build a robust local food economy, revitalize downtown, and bring hope and health to community members while recovering from floods that devastated the community in the summer of 2016.

Williamson, West Virginia: See how community members in Williamson used a health care center and local foods to anchor their downtown redevelopment efforts.

Photo Essays From Local Foods, Local Places Workshops

2017 Local Foods, Local Places Summit

In 2017, EPA and its federal partners brought together representatives from 33 of the 90 communities served through LFLP (and its predecessor, Livable Communities in Appalachia) to discuss their successes and challenges with different local food and community development approaches. This summary, Lessons from Community Leaders on Using Local Foods to Revitalize Downtowns, shares the experiences of the communities participating in the summit more broadly and is useful for LFLP communities that could not attend the summit as well as other places looking for advice on starting and maintaining local food and revitalization projects.